Reply to S/O Elder care for parents who didn't provide child care

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Reply to "S/O Elder care for parents who didn't provide child care"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This seems to be a common generational dispute: [b]The concept of "respect they parents no matter what they do because they gave us life" is shared by the boomers and not so much by generation X onward.  
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Not sure we're going to solve this in this thread.

That said, if you just zoom out a bit and think about group dynamics, any one person being perceived as a free loader when others are feeling stressed is going to cause problems. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if OP and her husband were seriously pulling it in, this thread wouldn't exist. The problem is that OP is stressed and has limited resources (as most of us do), and is frustrated that healthy MIL isn't concerned with this fact. I may be wrong, but if MIL said "I know childcare must be costing you a bundle, can I help with the kids two days a week?" OP would probably feel more concerned with overburdening an older lady.

I don't think OP is saying "my MIL has to raise my kids or else she deserves to be treated like crap." I think she's just frustrated that MIL is being oblivious and selfish while she is stressing out.

[/quote]

That's because Gen X was raised by  late Silents and by Boomers and they did a shitty job of parenting.  Gen X got ignored a lot by parents who had their own agendas to pursue.  We got soaring divorce rates, parents who were more focused on careers than kids, and parents who ditched their kids to "find themselves" and become self-actualized. Those same parents (mostly Boomers) also didn't help with childcare for the grandkids because they were too busy doing their own thing. Now those parents want to come back and demand that Gen X take care of them in their old age.  It feels remarkably like being used after 30 -50 years of being ignored.

If your Boomer/Silent parents helped you out, by all means help them. If they didn't help you out, then you don't owe them a thing. They'll have to find their own way, just like we did. [/quote]

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